1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a wheelchair having a back plate and a seat plate and a manufacturing method thereof, and more particularly, to a customized wheelchair having a back plate and a seat plate formed to fit a body shape and a manufacturing method thereof.
2. Background Art
A wheelchair is defined as a chair having wheels and used mobility-impaired people. The wheelchair includes front wheels at a front portion of a frame and rear wheels at a rear portion thereof. The frame includes a seat plate that supports the hip of a user, a back plate that supports the back of the user, and a foot plate that supports the feet of the user.
In recent years, the customized wheelchair having the back plate and the seat plate is developed to avoid changes and deterioration in body shapes of the mobility-impaired people who suffer from cerebral palsy or spinal paralysis and thus spend their everyday lives while seated in a chair.
In particular, when people who suffer from severe physical disability and thus spend their everyday lives in a chair, they may slide or fall down from a wheelchair due to unstable postures. Moreover, in many cases, their spine portions may be severely deformed due to an askew posture. Therefore, for a person who sits on a chair and thus needs others' help, there is a desperate demand for a customized wheelchair having a back plate and a seat plate.
The present invention provides such a customized wheelchair designed to fit a body shape.
A conventional method of manufacturing a back plate and a seat plate in a customized wheelchair designed to fit a body shape includes steps of: measuring a body size of a user seated in a chair; writing a specific detail of the user while measuring; performing a fitting operation in which the back plate and the seat plate are selected to constitute the chair for the user, and then the back plate and the seat plate are repeatedly carved by using various tools while the user is seated on the chair until the back plate and the seat plate exactly fit to the hip and the back of the user.
However, in the conventional method, in order to fit the body shape of the user, the back plate and the seat plate are manually carved by estimating the body shape of the user instead of directly performing a molding process by using an actual body shape of the user. Therefore, it is difficult to manufacture the back plate and the seat plate exactly fitted to the body shape of the user. In addition, since a high technique is required, the quality of the back plate and the seat plate has to depend on an operator's skill. However, even a job is done by the skillful operator, the job depends on eye measurement. Therefore, it has been impossible to manufacture the back plate and the seat plate exactly fitted to the body shape of the user.
Furthermore, since the manufacturing is manually carried out by the operator, there is a limit in a workload. In addition, an actual manufacturing time is required more than about one week. Accordingly, there has been a problem in that a significantly long time is required in manufacturing.
In particular, whenever the fitting operation is repeated, the user has to repeatedly seat on the chair, which is a very hard task for the mobility-impaired people.
Meanwhile, recently, in order to solve these problems, a method of manufacturing the back plate and the seat plate by using a computer has been proposed.
That is, a method has been proposed in which a body shape is scanned by using a scanner connected to a computer while the user is seated, and thereafter a material that forms the back plate and the seat plate by using information obtained from scanning is carved so that the back plate and the seat plate are formed to fit the body shape of the user.
However, when the computer is used as described above, equipment itself is expensive (more than 300 thousand US dollar). Moreover, it is difficult to fully aware a technique for operating the equipment. Therefore, at present, the method has not been put to practical use.